YJ- A Shot in the Dark (part 12)

"Wolf!" Nightwing yelped, darting to the fallen creature's side.

The hybrid canine barely showed he was alive by trying to get his eyes open, eventually giving up and returning to the drug induced slumber. Nightwing pet his fur and pulled out the tranquilizer dart, which he tucked into his utility belt with a muttered curse.

Wally wasn't paying attention. Instead, he was a few yards away, darting back and forth through the snow in search of any sign of Artemis. Other than the spots of reddened snow. Yes, he'd feel bad if Wolf was actually hurt, but there was only one thing his mind could focus on

"Flash."

He winced at the volume of the voice in his ear as much as the command it held, and it took him a moment to realize that the Bat hadn't appeared out of nowhere to growl at him.

"Uh, yeah?" Wally asked, holding down the relay on his ear. "I mean, here, Bats. Nightwing, too."

"Green Arrow?"

The younger heroes exchanged glances, Nightwing grimaced. "En Route."

Neither had to see Batman to know he was scowling. "What's your 20?"

"Kansas," Nightwing reported. "About seven miles outside Smallville."

"Have you found her?"

"No," Wally answered flatly.

"She's near here, at least," Nightwing offered. "Her transmitter's been cut off and, knowing how Artemis fights, I doubt Deathstroke was able to take her far. How about your end?"

"The Light's been involved," Batman informed them. "Luthor's a contributor, but he claims to have not seen Deathstroke since the end of the Reach Invasion."

"Can't we put him away on that?" Wally groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. The end of the Reach Invasion? They've been trying to kill her since I...

"Not likely," Nightwing answered. "Can't really prosecute someone for putting a hit on someone who's supposed to already be dead."

"And even if we could, that would put Artemis in more danger," Batman confirmed. "I'm on my way to you now. Send coordinates to the rest of the team. Wait for the them to arrive. Is that clear, Flash?"

Wally glared into the air. "I heard you."

"That's not-."

"Flash out," Wally reported, tapping the comlink and effectively bringing back the quite of the winter night.

He had no doubt that Batman was furious and he really wasn't surprised to hear Nightwing muttering a response a few seconds later. "Yeah, Bats," the dark haired man confirmed. "I'll make sure he doesn't do anything incredibly stupid. Nightwing out."

A stiff wind rushed past, drawing Wally's searching gaze back to the moonlit snow. Searching for anything that could help.

"Dude," Nightwing breathed out, crouching next to Wolf again. "You're gonna have one hell of a talking to when this is over."

Wally shrugged, his gaze staying glued on the east. "I'm not waiting for them."

"Yeah," Nightwing sighed, running a hand through his hair before getting up again. "Yeah, I kinda figured you'd say that."

"And you can't make me," Wally continued.

"Wasn't planning on it," Nightwing said with a dark smirk as he fiddled with the projections on his gauntlet.

That brought Wally's gaze to him briefly. "What about Bats?"

Nightwing glanced up, just in time to meet his gaze, and his smirk grew as he shrugged. "I said I'd make sure you didn't do anything incredibly stupid," he remarked. "I've got plausible deniability for your regular stupid."

Wally rolled his eyes, feeling strangely happier despite the circumstances. "How's Wolf?"

"He'll be fine by sunrise," Nightwing reported. "Superboy might want blood though."

Wally snorted in agreement, almost glancing back, but his eyes caught something in the additional glow of Nightwing's holographic screen.

"Drag marks?" he pointed out, drawing the darker haired man's attention to several paces away in the snow. "Heading south-east?"

Nightwing frowned, but moved further across the knoll of a hill. Farther below, there were indeed marks that looked as though something (or someone) had been dragged a few feet. But just a but further it was very distinctly a trail of footprints through the nearly knee-deep snow.

"Deathstroke's not stupid enough to leave tracks if he can help it," he said, looking to his friend.

Wally took in this information quietly, verifying it with his own silence. But the quiet was longer than he expected, and Nightwing almost thought that the redhead wasn't going to answer.

"He wants us to find him."

The tone was dark and laced with murderous resolve-something expected of a Bat not a Flash. But at the moment, Wally might as well have been Bruce in red when Nightwing looked up at him again. It was a terrifying sight and he couldn't help but wonder if Slade knew that he'd inadvertently lit a rage that few had seen before and even less could have lived through.

"Well," Wally said, pulling Nightwing from his thoughts with a foreboding smile. "It'd be a shame to disappoint him."

The younger hero sighed as he got to his feet, but gave Wally a grim nod. "Time to start feeling the aster."

.- .- .

Artemis was trying to remember the rule of threes. She was fairly sure it was three minutes of oxygen, or at least that was the only thing that made sense. But she couldn't decide which one was supposed to kill her first. Was it three hours without food or without water? Then again there were certain health disorders that could answer that, so it must have been water.

Either way, she was definitely past that whole three hour mark and apparently still alive. So maybe it's not three hours?

No matter how you looked at it, she was dehydrated. Having dealt with health issues when she was younger, stemming from her father's methods of training, Artemis knew the importance of water and how a lack of it would effect her body. Being lethargic and disoriented were just the beginning of it and, luckily, she'd had plenty of training with the team to function under those conditions. To some extent she was glad Slade had strapped her so tightly to the chair, but it was making it damn hard to concentrate.

Granted the pain helped bring back windows of clarity. Sort of.

Deathstroke had taken his time. Definitely making sure that she'd have the most agonizing time possible. Her right arm was hyper-extended, her left shoulder was dislocated and her wrist was broken. Her left leg still had the gash from their bridge fight, her right knee was probably going to need surgery. She couldn't even count all the shallow wounds, bruises, and sear marks that littered her body. If she made it through this, she was going avoid mirrors for a month.

"Not falling asleep on me, are we?"

Slade lifted her head via a tight grip on her hair and Artemis glared. The jerk was smiling at her.

In response, she managed to work up her saliva and spat at him. The reddish liquid splattering on his shoulder, clashing spectacularly against the orange half of his costume.

A moment later Deathstroke gave a dark chuckle that made her skin prickle and she fought down a shudder. Even if he had felt it, though, it was cold enough that he may not have been able to tell if it was the chill or fear that made her shake.

"Go to hell," she managed, though her throat felt like it was burning from the screams he'd pulled out of her.

"I'm sure I will," he assured her as simply as though relaying the weather. "But you'll be leading the way."

The pain hit her before she could scream. Swift as a punch, but with a pinch that told her it was more than just his fist pressed into her abdomen. What tore another scream out of her was him pulling back and the searing pain it brought.

When the stars left her vision, she felt like she was going to be ill. His hand, holding what might have been a switch blade or hunting knife, was covered in crimson. Which it hadn't been before.

"I'll give you this much," he announced, wiping the blade clean with the rag she'd seen him use more than a dozen times now. "You did great keeping off grid. I probably wouldn't have found you at all if your friend hadn't sent in a video of you to the news."

Artemis looked up at him in alarm.

The assassin smiled. "Oh yes, I saw it," he assured her. "Or, part of it, anyway. Enough to know you were in the Keystone City Zoo, only a couple hours away. Which gave me enough time to track you through security cameras to that fancy little apartment of yours."

It was really getting hard to breath, let alone focus, but one thought was standing out clearly. He didn't know her new identity. He didn't know or care who Linda Park was. He wouldn't go after David and Mary.

Great, good, one problem down, she sighed inwardly.

A strange buzzing made her blink and cringe slightly. She'd heard the sound before, when Deathstroke had been using her as a wiping post, but it had stopped after a while. She'd thought it had been a timer or something. But this time Slade let out a short growl, picking up a small black cellphone.

"What?" Deathstroke barked into the reciever.

Artemis fought down the urge to be sick as she gasped for air, taking as many breaths as she could to quell the sound of her pulse in her ears and listen to what was being said. The contemplative expression on the man's face didn't bode well.

"...She's the daughter of who?" the mercenary asked, glancing at his hostage. A smirk came to his face and he gave a low chuckle at whatever possible answer he could have received. "Really? That's interesting... It's always the quiet ones, isn't it?... And when's her fifteenth birthday?"

Though still riddled with sharp pains and aches, Artemis tensed. She wasn't even dead yet and he was going after another mark. On a kid. Someone who was barely as old as she'd been when she started her hero life.

"Yes, I think a visit to the little black bird might be in order," Deathstroke agreed, moving along the work bench to pick up a small knife which he examined closely. "But right now I'm already visiting with someone."

With that apparently settled, Slade set the phone aside, his malicious smirk leering at her. Artemis swallowed. Tensing as she warily watched him step closer, his smile growing more malicious with each passing millisecond.

He was only a foot away and Artemis was wondering if she'd be sick or hyperventilate, when an orange light flared to life. Flooding the room with the strange glow for a second or two before plunging the perimeter back into darkness. Then it flared again.

By the third flare, Deathstroke's attention was drawn away from his prey and he was heading back to his supply table where he put down his knife. Her relief would've been short lived if there'd been any, as he turned to face her again with a cruel smile.

"Seems our guests have arrived," he informed her. "How about I make them comfortable before we continue."

Artemis tried to respond, tried to choke out a response that would deter him from marching off to kill them. But she couldn't do more than gasp, and it sounded awful. Which only made the psycho chuckle as he headed off into the shadows and out some door she couldn't see.

.- .- .

"Watch out for the wall sensor-right over there," Dick warned, pointing to a wall just past the desk to their right.

Flash nodded, crouching for a few steps before he stood to frown at the dark haired man. "How is it you know the layout already?"

Dick looked up form his holo-screen to cast him a smirk. "Worked a case with Superman once or twice," he answered. "Came to realize one thing about Luthor's designs—they're all the same layout. Lex has control issues."

"Ya think?" Flash snorted.

"Just a bit," Dick responded with a grin, but then he turned serious again. "There are four likely places-if the schematics are the same as Gotham, Baton Rouge, and Metropolis-that would be best for... well, Deathstroke."

"If?" Flash echoed, raising an eyebrow. "You haven't hacked the system yet?"

Dick rolled his eyes. "This place was shut down eons ago," he argued. "What little of a system they had in 1993 would probably give me less information than where the bathrooms are."

Flash tried to bite back a smirk. "Talk about priorities."

"Shut up, Flash," Dick returned, not bothering to hide his own smirk.

"Well, lead on, then Nightwing," his friend suggested with an overly grand motion for him to start walking.

Dick rolled his eyes, but his own smirk remained on his face. Wally was cracking jokes. Awful ones, yeah, but jokes none the less. Which could only mean one thing-The Flash was ready to fight.

In all his time he'd known the speedster, Dick had learned one very important thing. If Wally was joking around or being a general pain in the neck, then he was confident in their fight or at least enough into hero-mode that he'd work as an ally. If he was quiet or serious, he was actually on the boarder of freaking out. It had always been something of a "hit or miss" situation for the longest time. Then Artemis had shown up and loosened some screws. Who could've guessed their bickering was the best balancer Kid Flash could ever ask for?

Maybe it was just the fact that they were so close to her, that she might only be a room away-whatever it was, Dick could practically see the excitement building inside his friend at the prospect of getting to hold her again. And that was the best news he'd gotten all night. Not even with the first two wings of the plant being empty when they checked brought down the speedster's mood. In fact, Dick could swear his friend was giving off pulses of electricity for how fast he was moving.

"This is different," Dick muttered, staring at a door to his left before looking at the old blueprints he'd saved from visits to other LexCorp plants. It was a good half hour since they'd gotten into the building, which said something for the plant's size since Wally's speed helped them out alot. But now they'd reached a door that didn't match any other LexCorp properties.

Actually, it didn't match any of the other doors they'd passed either. It was shinier for being several years old and had neither a doorknob or a plate to push against. There was a keypad, though, just off to the right. Meaning it was probably high-tech for it's time.

"What's the hold up?" Flash asked, reappearing at his side from the far end of the corridor that seemed to run the length of the building.

Dick nodded towards the door. "Something's off."

Flash frowned and followed his gaze, then sped the distance to beat him to the door where he pinched his chin in thought. "Looks important. Something we need to look into?"

"Considering who it belongs to? Yes," Dick responded, already plugging his gauntlet into the door's keypad.

Numbers flickered to life on the small display screen above the keys before scrolling rapidly until it settled to a code, which blinked twice before disappearing. And the door slid open with a hiss.

.- .- .

Wally couldn't help choking on the stale air that pushed forward a cloud of dust and who knows what. Next to him, Nightwing was glaring past him into the hall. Which was... blue? Wally frowned, tapping the cowl next to his right eye to remove the filters of the lenses. But, yep, the hall was definitely blue. Lit up from evenly spaced spotlights that seemed to come from the floor directed at the walls.

"Black lighting or ultra-violet?" Nightwing asked.

"Could be either," Wally said with a shrug. "Doesn't matter, they're not hiding motion detectors."

"Yeah," Nightwing agreed, fidgeting with his gauntlet. "But let me try something before you go speeding off and trip one further up."

Wally raised an eyebrow. "I've been through this whole place without setting anything off!"

"Uh-huh." It didn't matter that his mask had white lenses covering those bright blue eyes, Wally knew they were rolling at him. "But we're gonna try Little Wing's program anyway."

He was about to ask what the heck that meant, when a pulse of light shot off. It flew to the end of the hall then surprised Wally further by splitting once it hit the wall, sending the pulse in two different directions.

"And," Nightwing drawled as he typed on the projected screen. "Here we go!"

Wally let out a low whistle as a 3D projection of hallways appeared. "Red invented that, huh?"

"He broke his leg back in March," Nightwing explained as he started forward, though his attention stayed on the projection. "Developing this was the only thing that kept him from going crazy or sneaking off to his bike."

"I believe it," Wally murmured, then nodded to the projection. "Gimme a direction, bird-boy."

"Left hall's short with three doors and one possible camera," Nightwing reported. "Right's long, a dozen doors, three possible cameras. Either one has sensors at the corner."

"I'll let you know if I find anything," Wally said and left no room for response before he bolted down the left hall.

It was quick work, even with the added caution to avoid sensors. Which, to some extent, was growing more pointless in his mind. Deathstroke knew they were coming for him. By this point he must have been waiting for them, which made it incredibly hard for him to do anything but speed to find Artemis as quickly as meta-humanly possible.

His thoughts were cut short, though, as he reached the last door of the long hallway. Each of the other doors might have needed a little maneuvering or picking to get the doorknob to turn, but this one was not only locked. After he'd gotten the tumblers to budge, the door still refused to open.

"Nightwing? We may have something," he commented, pressing the comlink to his ear. "Looks like it's bolted from the inside."

There was no answer, but moments later the younger man appeared next to him by means Wally had given up trying to figure out. All Bats seemed to just come out of the woodwork when they moved. In seconds, Nightwing had some form of tech out that he was running over the face of the door just above the regular lock.

Not too much later, thought Nightwing had frowned once or twice at the progress, they could hear the metallic sliding of locks in the door. The heroes exchanged glances and Wally gave the surface a push. The door gave way a little slowly, creaking as it swung inward.

Unlike the rest of the section they'd gone through, opening the door didn't set off any sensor cue to turn on a light of some sort. "Right," Wally said and turned to his best friend, "Can you use that laser ball thing again?"

"I've been trying, but there's not enough of a light source," Dick muttered, fiddling with his gauntlet.

"Okay, great," Wally sighed. Despite the probability that something could go wrong by moving incorrectly (at some point, he wouldn't put it past Luthor to have put poison in the paint on the walls), Wally lead the way inside.

It wasn't until he was several steps in that something happened. Lights went on. But not usual lights, or even the base running wall spots from the corridor. It was as though the room had been made upside-down, with large light panels checker-boarding across the floor.

He could see the room now, though, if nothing else. It was a good sized space, maybe a radius of eleven feet, but he had to admit he'd never seen a circular room quite like this before. Granted, he wasn't altogether sure he'd seen a round room before either. And the walls had some form of glass covering them.

"What the...?"

The question died in the air as a loud screech of metal made the heroes spin back towards the door, which was closing a heck of a lot faster than it had opened.

Nightwing cursed and bounded to catch it, with speeding along to help. But even as their fingers grasped the cool metal, the door pulled from their grip and slammed shut. A soft grunt and recoil from the younger hero let Wally know that his friend's fingers hadn't gotten away entirely scot-free.

"I know you don't like doing it," Nightwing started, cradling his left hand as he tried to flex his fingers. "But do you think you could vibrate through?"

Wally hesitated for a microsecond. Yes, he probably could. It would make the door's molecules unstable and cause it to explode, but he could. Though, that tied in the other problem of any possible chain reaction it could set off. If anything else went along with the door, they'd be risking their lives but possibly Artemis's, too. But if they were trapped in here, she was going to die anyway.

"Yeah," he said, switching places with Nightwing. "I'm on it."

No sooner had he reached for the door, then a large shock sent him flying back into the room. Nightwing knelt next to him as he pushed to sit up, hissing out a curse while silently praising the material of his scarlet suit.

"Well, well, well."

Instantly the two heroes leapt to their feet, standing back to back as their eyes searched for the new comer.

"If it isn't the Bird and his Flash," Slade's voice continued with a dark chuckle. "I have to admit, I thought you'd have found us faster."

Wally let out a growl, using his enhanced lenses to search for the heat signature, only to get readings he couldn't fully explain. Why does it look like there was more to the room? "Where is she?!"

"Patience is a virtue, Flash," the assassin scolded mockingly. "You know how women are. They don't want you to see them until they're... ready to be seen."

"Bastard!" Wally snapped.

"Now that you're here, though," Slade continued over him. "I suppose I should help hurry her along."

"Don't you touch her!" Wally shouted, focusing on the darkened area down the length of the hall.

Nightwing gripped his friend's arm, also glaring at the direction but not about to let Wally run head-long into trouble.

"That's right, Grayson," Slade said with another chuckle. "Keep your dog in line. Wouldn't want him to add to the damage."

Wally pulled harder to get out of Nightwing's grip, ready to start breaking the glassy walls. But his friend held tighter, his own glare searching the walls too.

"Not going to show yourself?" the raven haired detective asked. "I thought you preferred to leave theatrics to the stage, Slade."

He was answered with a dark chuckle. "Of course, Richard," Slade complied. "I'd want to know what my cage looks like too."

Wally felt Nightwing's hand grip just a fraction tighter. But no questions were able to form before more lights flickered on, beyond the walls.

It wasn't a room they were in, it was a cage. A glass encasement set inside of what looked like a processing lab. Large computers lined the walls with several monitors that seemed to be showing different frequencies while Deathstroke smirked at them from an office chair. Twirling one of his guns against his knee.

A/N: Wow... that was a bit long, wasn't it? ... And here I'd thought I didn't have enough for you guys. O_o huh. Well, sorry it was a long time coming! There's still a few chapters left ^_^ And (fingers crossed) I've managed to work out my computer problems!... more or less... So, hopefully they'll be up soon! Happy readings! Love you all! I hope it's lived up to expectations. ^_^